Which I suppose brings up another point... It's kind of weird for everyone to go "Square-Enix's new _____". SE is a big publisher, with lots of little developers working for them. And, lo and behold, the people who actually make the game tend to have more influence than the people sponsoring them. Of course, even more important than the developers are the directors and whatnot, but it's even harder to keep track of them.

It's kind of sad, actually. Why don't we get many big name video game directors like we do for films? There's only three game directors that I can name off the top of my head. Why does Square-Enix eat all the publicity when we don't eagerly anticipate the next Paramount action flick? What can we do to make us actually care about the credits?

In other news, the credits are listed in alphabetical order in this game for some reason instead of divided by job. Quite confusing.

So this is a sequel to one of the endings of Drakengard, right? The one where the main characters are teleported to Tokyo by the giant, pregnant Cthulhu-mom who was apparently giving birth to a million Cthulhu-babies who were bringing about the end of the world because of an insane 8-year old? And they beat Cthulhu-momma with the power of music before being shot down by the Japanese military? That's an odd direction.

Well I hope they didn't tone things down in localization like they did with Drakengard. Apparently Drakengard was just plain weird in Japan.

The weapons have little descriptions that hint at stories, but nothing as in depth as they were in Drakengard (Ie: "Owned by a queen who went on a murderous rampage because of blah blah blah"). Unless you have to upgrade them to max level in order to see it. No new story at level 2 though, as far as I could tell.

Maybe they figured that the ugly old guy look would resonate better with Western audiences. I don't mind the look, but his face looks like it's missing something. That something may just be a rocking beard.

I don't know, some people I know seem to think bear-nier fits the game's overall artstyle better than bish-nier. Not to mention the fact that the 360 version in japan is still getting bear-nier. Which design is the original and which design is pandering?

^ Yes, this exactly. Which makes me really wonder about Japan, honestly. I consider the whiny bishie character grating, and am glad he's not the original.

I haven't played this yet. I only recently purchased it, and am sad that Cavia has gone under. I'm still utterly confused whenever I see reviews claiming that the visuals are "dated" and "ugly" when they juxtapose this statement with screenshots like this.◊ Okay, I know that isn't the best example (one of the boss fights would be better) but just look at that. That's a standard magical spell effect. You can set it off by hitting a button.

Whichever one came first really depends on where you look really...people who likes old Nier likes to believe that the old man came first, and the young version was made to cater to jap audiences. Whereas those who prefer the young Nier likes to believe the young one came first and it's the western branch in Los Angeles who got in the way and demanded they turn youngNier into oldNier.

This link says that young came first, but there was a heated argument in Los Angeles branch that demanded Nier being made into an old guy.

And the side that says oldNier came first and youngNier was made to cater to japanese audience, they used the fact that...actually I'm not sure where their argument comes from, since it's different every time. Something along the lines of oldNier is more realistic. ...I think it's a matter of realistic vs. fantastic in games...or something.

But in the end, Cavia went under, Nier was a failure (although the bishi one did quite well in Japan if stats are any indication). If the oldNier came first, then maybe developers could look into the game to see what was wrong(budget? The game did feel a tad unpolished). If youngNier came first, then hopefully Japanese developers would learn their lesson and stop listening to foreign branches and westernizing their games just to appeal to North Americans(Devil May Cry).

...so...anyone have more solid evidence supporting whichever one came first?

The difference in sales figures for Japan either speaks to the lower sales for 360 games in general over there (which I'm not clear on), or to the gruff MC not being to the Japanese preferences (which again, makes me really wonder about Japan, but whatever).

.....ok...I guess the youngNier coming first is slightly more reasonable I guess. Since that one has support from the producer itself.

Still...it's such a Wall Banger that they didn't just make a SINGLE game that lets use choose between old father, and young big brother. Then there, no more controversy. Easy as that. Since there are quite a few people who said they won't buy the game if they can't choose.

Or better yet, not listen to people living in Los Angeles...or people who complains about realism in a fantasy game.

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